Last week, the venerable Williamstown Theatre Festival announced that instead of completely cancelling its multi-show summer season, the productions would be reconceived as audioplays and musicals. But you don't need to wait until June to listen to compelling theatre. Audio recordings of hundreds of stage works are currently available to enjoy for free or at very low cost at these five websites.

Playing on Air
This podcast/radio show highlights short audioplays written specifically to be heard, not seen. Over the years, notable playwrights including Dominique Morisseau, Paul Rudnick, Hamish Linklater, and Pulitzer Prize winners David Lindsay-Abaire, John Patrick Shanley and David Auburn have contributed playlets performed by actors such as Bobby Cannavale, Michael C. Hall, Michelle Williams, Michael Stuhlbarg, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Michael Urie. You can listen to all of Playing on Air's past productions for free on the website. New shorts will be released online every Sunday through May 31.

Soundstage
A new initiative from Off Broadway's Playwrights Horizons, Soundstage features commissioned audio works from an array of lauded dramatists. The inaugural offering, the musical PRIME by Heather Christian (whose buzzy Oratorio for Living Things closed early due to the current health crisis), debuted last week, and new 15- to 40-minute pieces will be released every Thursday. Participating playwrights include Robert O'Hara, Jordan Harrison, Qui Nguyen, Kirsten Childs, Jeremy O. Harris and Lucas Hnath, so expect boundary-pushing stories. You can listen to all Soundstage episodes for free on the theatre's website.

Broadway Podcast Network
Many of the offerings on this podcast hub are talk shows, some hosted by Broadway vets such as Josh Lamon, Kerry Butler and Ramin Karimloo. But a handful offer multi-episode narratives starring NYC stage regulars. Loveville High is a series of ten-minute musical romances set on prom night in Loveville, Ohio, and counts West Side Story's Isaac Cole Powell, Once on This Island's Hailey Kilgore and Oklahoma! Tony winner Ali Stroker among its cast. Bleeding Love: A Post-Apocalyptic New Musical, which debuts in late April, is a three-episode love under lockdown story starring Annie Golden, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Tony nominees Marc Kudisch and Sarah Stiles. And Once More, with Dragons! is a mash-up of Dungeons & Dragons and musicals, with each episode a new improvised fantasy tale. Listen to those and other podcasts for free on the website.